It was not meant to be like this.
The fighters of the Nafusa were supposed to be more tenacious, better organised and, thanks to a French air drop, better armed than the rest of the
Libyan opposition's makeshift army.
Nato was urged to believe the "liberation" of Qawalish would allow the rebels to tighten their stranglehold on Tripoli 60 miles away. But in fact, as they fell back, the rebels made a galling admission: they had simply run out of ammunition.
They recaptured Qawalish on Thursday night. But the form the chaotic, sometimes joyful, always painfully slow rebel advance across Libya is taking has caused deep unease in the Western alliance as it grapples with the biggest, most unexpected question of the Arab Spring: what to do with Colonel Gaddafi?
In Istanbul on Friday, Nato and its friends put on a brave show, trying to hide their growing differences with talk of "recognition" for the rebels' Transitional National Council – something that has never been in any doubt – and renewed promises of cash.
But those differences ring out. Britain remains true to its original, risky premise, that persistence will triumph and that the Gaddafi regime will crumble and fall. Public backing was strong, said one insider, the rebels were growing in confidence and the TNC was "impressively determined".
Seen from London, the colonel's associates are on the point of defection and desertion, held to their leader only by threats to their families. "They pour their heart out on the phone about how they are desperate to get out," an insider said.
Britain's view is largely shared in the United States. A recent US intelligence assessment concluded that, after the Nafusa rebels sabotaged oil pipelines to Tripoli, the Gaddafi regime could run out of petrol to refuel its military vehicles by the end of August.
International sanctions are also beginning to bite, even as Col Gaddafi's financial reserves dwindle. In a drastic measure, residents of Tripoli have been forbidden from withdrawing more than £600 a month from banks.
But other allies seem on the verge of pulling out as what was intended to be a quick, decisive intervention lingers into an uncomfortably long, expensive summer campaign.
During the week, the French defence minister, Gerard Longuet, called for immediate negotiations. Paris admitted it was already in direct contact with Tripoli's emissaries.
"Maybe I underestimated the resistance of Gaddafi and overestimated the capacity of the [rebels]," Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, acknowledged in a moment of candour earlier this month.
The disclosure of such freelance approaches brought a rebuke from Italy's foreign minister, Francesco Frattini, who said: "All the attempts to have secret, confidential mediation those prove very counter-productive."
But only last month, he himself had called for an "immediate suspension of hostilities", alarmed by the humanitarian consequences of the allied bombing campaign and its civilian casualties.
Turkey, not part of the coalition but a Nato member and seen nowadays as an inevitable interlocutor between Europe and the Middle East, went even further. It called on Friday for a political solution to be on the table by the beginning of Ramadan, which falls on August 1, a ceasefire, and for Col Gaddafi to be offered a deal whereby he stands down but is allowed to remain in the country.
Such mixed messages, in this most modern war where guerrillas in caves are connected not only to Nato's laser guided weapons systems but to its media by satellite, transmit rapidly to the front lines.
Superficially at least, the residents of the Nafusa mountains, which are largely in rebel control, remain grateful to Nato. "Thanks Nato, you saved our lives," one sign, scrawled on a wall in the Berber town of Nalut, declares. "Thanks Sarkozy," reads another.
But beneath the surface, anger towards the alliance is growing, with rebel commanders saying they are bewildered by its contradictory messages.
"What Nato says and does often makes no sense," one said. "If we are attacking, they bomb Gaddafi forces so we can advance more easily, but if we are defending, they do nothing. Then some of them say we have to negotiate with Gaddafi, that maybe he can stay in Libya, and others say Gaddafi must go."
Suggestions that the "Brother Leader" may stay in Libya leave many rebels incandescent.
They point out that Col Gaddafi already has no official position and giving him a different title could still allow him to visit retribution once the international community turns its attentions elsewhere.
"The French position is not very consistent," complained Abu Ali, the editor of a new rebel newspaper in Zintan, the largest opposition held town in the Nafusa Mountains.
"The comments by the French defence minister are not very helpful to the people of Benghazi, or the people of the Nafusa or to any Libyan freedom fighters."
Across Libya the rebels seem to have gained little ground. Opposition fighters in the third city of Misurata have for weeks been trying to seize Zlitan, a town to the west that is blocking their advance towards Tripoli. On Saturday fighters in the east of the country were preparing a fresh assault on the oil terminal town of Brega, which they captured early in the rebellion but quickly lost again to Gaddafi's forces.
The Nafusa rebels at least, on the closest of three fronts to Tripoli, remain convinced that they can advance on the capital. And they also know there can be no turning back.
Until Col Gaddafi decided to give his regime a less bloodthirsty face, his regime marked every April 7 by publicly hanging troublesome university students and opposition activists.
Two were executed in Nalut's dusty football stadium in 1984, a moment seared into the memory of the town's Berber tribesmen, who were punished by being deprived of electricity and water for the sins of the dead.
But this feeds into the second Nato concern: what might happen if the rebels do succeed in their ambition, and march on Gaddafi strongholds.
Some feel a negotiated outcome could be preferable not only to a prolonged war but even to a rebel military victory. That would risk a power vacuum, retributive attacks, catastrophic tribal bloodshed and even Libya's potential disintegration.
Last week, volunteers in the same stadium were being trained as a temporary police force whose main job will be to protect Col Gaddafi's civilian sympathisers in Tripoli when the city falls.
But worryingly for Nato, the rebels - who have themselves been accused of some human rights abuses against captured loyalist prisoners - admit that a little bit of bloodletting is inevitable.
"It is difficult to control a revolution," said Col Juma Ibrahim, a senior rebel commander. "It is a difficult situation and we wouldn't know how to stop it. But I think it will only last for a short time. At first people will be angry but then they'll start to calm down."
First of all, of course, they have to win the war. Men like Col Ibrahim admit a lack of co-ordination and an inability to establish a chain-of-command is hampering progress.
Huge logistical difficulties also confront the rebels, chief among them a shortage of fuel, cash and weapons. Rifts in the rebels' own ranks do not help. The towns and villages of the Nafusa are by no means united in their sympathies, and often compete with each other.
There are persistent reports that an arms drop by the French, trumpeted in the Paris media, was taken by one faction and not shared. "What I want to know is where these French weapons are," said one fighter, Abu Moussa.
"Nobody has seen any sign of them. Some of us are fighting with rifles our grandfathers used against the Italians. How does Nato expect us to win like this?"
Nato remains formally committed to the principle that all such problems can be overcome with a united determination that Col Gaddafi must go, despite fears among the generals of both France and Britain, the two lead contributors, of military overstretch. William Hague, the foreign secretary, on Friday announced four more Tornado reconnaissance jets would join the fray.
The United States pledged that by recognising the TNC, it could begin the process of unlocking $34 billion in frozen assets – though the small print suggests only a small fraction of that, maybe 10 per cent, will actually be handed over.
Nato is also fiercely aware that by backing an International Criminal Court decision to indict Col Gaddafi for war crimes, it has painted itself into a diplomatic corner. Britain can hardly be seen to do a deal which allows him to escape the court's independent scrutiny; but if someone else made that possible, no British diplomat is likely to object.
That is why, for all the talk of pressing on, more credence is also being attached than formerly to the negotiating powers of the African Union, to proposals like Turkey's, and to the skills of Abdul Elah al-Khatib, the UN envoy who is now the outside world's "sole intermediary" with the regime.
Even the Turkish "Ramadan ceasefire" proposal is being considered, one western diplomat said, while another admits that the idea of Col Gaddafi staying in Libya, once as much an anathema to the allies as to the rebels, is not an "red line".
It may all seem rather shabby. It may all in fact be moot – after putting out feelers to the West in past weeks, Col Gaddafi himself is now promising, once again, to "fight on to the end".
But unless an effort is made at least to try for peace, the alliance fears an already troubled campaign will not only stall, but implode in acrimony and humiliation.
